It's not easy trying to establish a program following in the footsteps of a legendary head coach. But, Shawn Morrison appears to be doing just fine.

Morrison took over the Birmingham Groves baseball program last year from Hall of Fame head coach Jim Crosby who had retired after a fruitful 46-year Falcons career.

Morrison enjoyed a great deal of success in his head coaching debut last year, leading the Falcons to a winning overall record (31-10), a runner-up finish in the OAA White Division (12-3) and their first district championship since 2005. He is quickly establishing a winning culture while carving out his own identity.

"There's an atmosphere that's created when, and there's a fine line, you expect to win and you know that you also have to earn every win," said Morrison, who is assisted by Jerry Brown and Michael Babcock. "You have to know that nobody is going to lay down. You have to have that fine line of having confidence and also the knowledge that you still have to go out and earn it pitch-by-pitch, out-by-out and game-by-game. That's how your season is played.

"The mentality, my career, is today, plus today, plus today, plus today," he said. "When you think like that, and a lot of people disagree with certain philosophies that I have, but one of the things we do is limit discussions and sharing of individual statistics because we want to have a team-oriented mindset.

"We're satisfying a lot of our process goals so far, making quality at-bats, minimizing our pinch counts and focusing on all of our ratios," he said. "We're trying to put ourselves into a position to be successful."

Maintaining the momentum

If the first few games this spring are any indication, Groves is absolutely maintaining last spring's momentum.

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Andrew Martin is one of 10 seniors returning this season to lead the experienced Birmingham Groves baseball squad.(Photo: Junfu Han | Staff Photographer)

The Falcons were undefeated through their first five games, including an exciting and confidence-building come-from-behind 3-2 victory over last year's OAA White champion Farmington on Monday in Beverly Hills.

Groves has demonstrated all the earmarks of a squad fully expecting to win each and very time out. That approach makes Morrison a happy coach.

"We have goals that are result based, but I try to steer the conversation towards, 'How do we achieve those goals?', 'What do we have to do every pitch?', 'What do we have to do every game?'," said Morrison. "We broke it down to saying offensively we want to draw more walks than strike outs, and defensively, we want to strike out more than we walk. So we look at things like that and break down the data.

"We want everyone to buy into the fact that walks are sexy. Everybody wants to hit a home run. Everybody wants that kind of spotlight. But, if you have a team atmosphere and you can get on base, then you believe in the guys behind you. We have a very team oriented approach.

"We're focusing on getting on base and we have a very strong team when it comes to our ability to move runners, we can play small ball and we can hit for slugging percentage too," he said. "We have guys who can hit laser beams and drop bunts. We have a strong team. The guys have ownership of this team, and that's something our players have built."

Groves enters the 2017 with a veteran squad of 14 returning players, including 10 seniors. The Falcons are experienced, balanced, deep, aggressive on the bases, solid on the mound, defensively sound and offensively efficient.

Tri-captains lead the way

The Falcons are led by their tri-captains -- seniors Max Novick and Zavier Warren, plus junior George Cutler.

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Senior outfielder John Kowalchuk batted .413 last season with 32 RBI and 41 runs scored and figures to again lead the Groves offense this spring.(Photo: Junfu Han | Staff Photographer)

Novick, one of the leaders of a strong pitching staff, finished with four victories last season. Offensively, he led Groves with a .415 average that included 39 hits and 30 RBI.

"We called upon Max and gave him the ball last year when we found ourselves in a must-win situation," said Morris. "We have a lot of confidence in him and he's really working on his mental game, definitely working hard on how to set up hitters better, what his approach is to minimize walks and start trying to get guys to swing at pitches out of the zone. Physically he is where he needs to be in many ways. He is getting stronger."

Martin, slowly returning to mound duties after recuperating from arm problems, led Groves with six victories last season. Ford, Laub and Zacharias each finished with four wins in 2016 and will supply mound depth for Morrison. Ford, who is fast and can hit for power, is also the team's lead-off hitter who had a hefty .485 on-base percentage last year.

Warren is an infielder who can bat from either side of the plate as the important No. 3 hitter in Morrison's lineup. He led the Falcons last season with 43 runs scored and 23 stolen bases. In addition, he was a co-leader with three home runs, two of which came in the 10-4 regional semifinal loss to Rochester Adams.

Seniors John Kowalchuk and Michael Pastoria will handle outfield duties along with Harrison Cole -- the team's only sophomore. Kawalchuk, who is 'hitting missles'' so far this year, enters this season on the heels of a big junior campaign where he hit .413, had 32 RBI and scored 41 runs.

Junior second sacker Connor Bradbury hit a robust s.367 last year as a sophomore. Cutler is Groves' leader behind the plate.

"Pitching is a strength, and offensively, any team that faces us has to deal with an attack that can swing from both sides," said Morrison. "We have some speed where we can cause some chaos on the base paths and we have depth. We have guys at the bottom of our lineup who are going to be stronger than other teams' bottom of the lineup.

"I do believe in our guys. We are a confident team, not an arrogant or cocky team," he said. "We're just going to go out on the field and handle our business. You can't take any team lightly, if you do they are going to come up and bite you. And if you are intimidated by any team, then you are not going to perform to your peak level either."

Entertaining lofty goals

In an effort to fully prepare his squad for the post-season, Groves will be playing such tough non-league squads as Brighton and Portage Central in the Brighton Tournament, Bay City John Glenn and Yale in the Jim Doyle Memorial Tournament, and St. Thomas Villanova (Canada), Orchard Lake St. Mary's and Livonia Stevenson.

"We're playing a lot of good competition this year," said Morrison. "We have a tough schedule. There's a stint where we play a lot of road games, and a game at U-M on a Sunday. There are times in our schedule when we'll have to rely on our pitching depth. This is a year to kind of put ourselves through adversity to try and set us up to be mentally tough and be battle-hardened by the time districts come around."

Morrison fully expects the Falcons to be in the hunt for the OAA White Division title and a second-straight district championship.

"We have high expectations for what we can do," said Morrison. "I think we have one of the toughest districts in the state. If we can make it out of our districts I think we have the potential to do well in the post-season. We're doing everything we can to prepare ourselves to have a fighting chance to beat Brother Rice or Bloomfield Hills or Troy, or who ever we have to in that post-season.

"Our ultimate goal is the pinnacle...to win a state championship," he said. "I think all of our guys understand that. That why we're really focusing on process-based goals. When we broke down and had our team meeting and set goals, inevitably a lot of the conversation started with win districts, win regional, win whatever, and beat teams that we haven't had success against."